Principally concerned with the adventures of two men, one of whom comes y accident to the knowledge that the recipe for making diamonds has been hidden in Minorca by an old alchemist who flourished in he twelfth century. His companion in the quest is one Haigh, an erratic genius as far as music is concerned, and a gentlemanly tramp in all other matters. With them, and opposed to them alternately, is a man of the name of Weems, a most repulsive specimen of humanity, and the meanest little skunk under the sun.

CHAPTER II.

HALCYONII DIES.

It is a tolerably insane amusement for a foreigner to go tramping over wild fields and valleys in Northern Norway with no other guide than the thing they call an ordnance map and a bit of a pocket-compass. And to do the same without intent to slay the beasts, the birds, or the fish of the country seems, to my way of thinking, even more mad still. Perhaps I am peculiarly constituted, but that's the way it strikes me personally. So I was rather curious to know what make of man it was that did these things.

Overnight I had seen little of him that was not heavily shadowed. The stranger preferred to do his own cooking, saying that he was used to it, and had elected to heat his meat at the doorway of the stove. Through this gap little radiance escaped. The only matters illuminated were the slices of venison, the toasting-splinter, and the hands that